


living behind the light

by jukeboxhound



Series: the fight goes on [2]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:26:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7491588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jukeboxhound/pseuds/jukeboxhound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Of all the things Sephiroth has been and done in his life, acting as the hair model for a little girl learning how to braid is not something he ever expected to add to the list.</p>
            </blockquote>





	living behind the light

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Archive's "Dark Room." Set some eight months or so after [_the fight goes on in this the babylon_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3960724). You don't have to read that first, not least because half of this fic is just Sephiroth reluctantly getting his hair braided, but it would definitely put things in context.
> 
> I'm slowly working on a sequel to the main story that addresses the real trauma caused by the events at the Honey Bee Inn of which Don Corneo was only a part. Those events are vaguely hinted at here.

 

Tifa hushes the kids with a finger to her lips and leads them up the stairs. Even Denzel is struggling to muffle his giggles as they tiptoe towards the open door of the Seventh Heaven's office, through which they can see Sephiroth's back and the shine of afternoon sunlight on his hair. When Marlene looks back at her questioningly, Tifa makes sure to scuff her boot loudly enough on the floor for Sephiroth – overtrained and lethal as he is – to hear, and then nods. Both kids scurry through the doorway.

"Sephiroth!" Marlene cries. Sephiroth has just enough time to set his pen down and scoot his chair back before Marlene is bracing herself with her hands on Sephiroth's knees and chirping, "Will you help us, please?"

Tifa crosses her arms and leans against the doorway to enjoy the show. Denzel stays beside her, although he no longer scowls whenever Sephiroth is in the room.

"What do you need?" Sephiroth asks cautiously.

Marlene straightens up so she can pluck at the long twist of her hair draped over a shoulder. "Tifa said she'd show me how to braid! But she can't teach me if we use my hair and her hair is too short now and so is Denzel's. Can we use yours?"

Sephiroth's expression makes Tifa cough to hide her laugh. "I...well."

 _"Please?"_ she begs, all big eyes and tiny hands clasped dramatically in prayer. Even Denzel is starting to look gleeful, and just as Tifa knew he would, having all but studied him for the last eight months, Sephiroth sighs and says, "All right."

"Yes!" Marlene immediately grabs his hands and tugs him to his feet, so much like a puppy with a rope that it's almost unbearably adorable. "C'mon, no one's downstairs and there's lots of space, so we'll do it there."

"Tifa," Sephiroth tries, but Tifa just raises an eyebrow and says, "What, is General Sephiroth more terrified by the disappointment of small children than war?"

"Aren't you?"

"Yes, and that's exactly why I volunteered you."

"I have a camera," Denzel pipes up with perfect timing and too much innocence, "so Cloud can see everything when he gets back."

Marlene shifts her grip to wrap around two of Sephiroth's fingers and pulls him towards the stairs, utterly oblivious to Sephiroth's complicated expression of confusion and resignation. They end up with Sephiroth sitting on a bar stool, Tifa behind him, with both kids sitting on the counter behind Tifa so they can watch. Tifa stands there, staring at the back of Sephiroth's head, and all she can think about is the fact that she has _General Sephiroth_ sitting quietly with his back to her, entirely undefended. Eight months since Cloud pulled him out of the pool in Aeris' church and it's still goddamn strange.

"Tifa?" Marlene ventures, and Tifa shakes herself and lets out a long breath.

"Right. So, it's always easier to braid hair when it's been brushed out, otherwise it pulls on tangles when you try to separate it into sections."  She tentatively reaches out to gather up Sephiroth's hair. It's thick and silky, of course, and she has to laugh to herself because she has no idea what else she was expecting. It flows easily between her fingers, looking almost quicksilver under the light coming in through the windows, cool to the touch at first. She pulls it back into one long, long tail, and when it's all been gathered she divides it up into smaller pieces, too aware of how carefully still Sephiroth is holding himself. Apparently she's not the only one realizing how surreal this is.

"Denzel, will you hand me that brush behind the counter, please?"

Denzel already looks bored out his mind but obediently hands the new boar's hair brush over. Holding the middle of a tail firmly, she starts brushing at the ends, slowly working her way up so she doesn't yank anything.

"Sephiroth," she says after a few minutes, "did you just purr?"

"Of course not," he replies stiffly, but he did, he totally did, and she can't help grinning until her cheeks hurt.

"Don't tell Cloud," Sephiroth eventually says.

She's definitely telling Cloud.

"Now watch, Marlene," Tifa says when she can speak without giggling madly. "You too, Denzel. Divide it all up into three equal sections. You hold them like this and start weaving them over each other, always using the section that's on the outside." She demonstrates a few turns. "Keep the hair tense, like this, but don't pull so hard you hurt him." She weaves a few more inches, then asks, "Do you want to try?"

"Yes!"

Tifa has to put an empty crate upside-down behind the bar stool for Marlene to stand on. She makes sure to stand far enough to the side that she can keep an eye on what Marlene's doing while watching Sephiroth's face. Even his famed skill at remaining composed can't hide the occasional wince and hilarious moment of _how did my life end up here?_

She makes a subtle gesture to catch Denzel's wandering attention and raises her eyebrows pointedly until he suddenly grins, pushing off the counter and digging a hand into the pocket of his baggy shorts. He darts around, cries, "Smile!" and flashes the camera before Sephiroth has time to do more than blink.

"I don't know why I expected anything different," he mutters, and the sight of Sephiroth in jeans and a dress shirt with the sleeves casually rolled up, slouching a bit so the little girl braiding his hair with no skill whatsoever can reach, sighing wearily at the little boy cackling behind his cheap disposable camera, has Tifa all but running into the back storeroom so she can laugh her ass off in private.

…

Numbers are reassuring. They don't change all by themselves, and when they do change, it's always in predictable ways. Cloud says he doesn't understand why Sephiroth enjoys keeping the books as much as he does and Tifa neither liked nor disliked doing it, but Sephiroth finds that there's something supremely satisfying in seeing the books add up to a perfect balance.

A few mornings after he played hair model for Marlene, Marlene manages to catch him in the office with his numbers again and demands that he braid her hair this time.

"Wouldn't you prefer Tifa to do it?"

"Tifa's busy on the phone because the guy who usually delivers more beer on Tuesdays is being a son of a bitch."

"Language," Sephiroth says reflexively. "Who taught you those words?"

"Will you please braid my hair?" she redirects. Sephiroth gives in with a sigh, which seems to be his usual reaction to the children. He pushes his chair back from the desk so Marlene can hand him her pink plastic brush, clamber onto his legs, perch on his knees with her back to him, and helpfully push her hair up into a messy bundle.

"Thank you," he says dryly, untangling her fingers from all that brown hair. "Please stop swinging your legs into my shins."

"Sorry."

"I'm sure." The pink plastic brush is too small for his hands, but he manages to get the knots out of her hair without tugging too hard. "What kind of braid do you want?"

She tilts her head back to look at him upside-down. "There's more than one kind?"

"Yes."

"I want your favorite one."

Sephiroth doesn't have a favorite one, but he's learned enough about kids to guess that she means the prettiest one, so he gently tilts her head forward again and starts dividing her hair into two equal sections. He works in silence for a little while, reluctantly admitting to himself that it's actually rather relaxing to do something that keeps his fingers busy without requiring much thought.

"Um, Sephiroth?"

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"…Yes."

"Big Sister says that sometimes people do terrible things because terrible things were done to them first."

His fingers pause. Jumping right into deep and painful subjects apropos of nothing: yes, always a favorite. "Sometimes that's true, yes. Sometimes people do terrible things anyway, and some people who have been through terrible things never give in to that darkness. Like Cloud."

Marlene twists to look at him so quickly that he nearly loses hold of her hair. "What kinds of things did Cloud go through?"

Sephiroth reflected that if he had ever needed an interruption before, this is that time. "Those things are for him to share, Marlene, not me. But yes, people hurt him very badly, including me, and he's still one of the best men I've ever known."

"Did someone hurt you, too?"

Sephiroth gently tugs on her hair. Marlene obediently turns back around and his fingers move again, threading sections of hair over and under and over. Eventually he says, "Yes. I've known some very cruel people, but while it helps explain what I've done to others in the past, it doesn't excuse it. Ribbon, please."

Marlene holds up an elastic band, which Sephiroth uses to tie off the braid, and her pink ribbon, which he knots just behind her head. When he tells her, "It's finished," she immediately pulls the braid over her shoulder so she can see it. "It's called a fishtail," he explains, feeling oddly self-conscious.

"It looks so _cool."_ She hops off his knees and does a small twirl. "How do I look?"

"Like you're ready to take on the world without your hair getting in your face," Cloud chimes in from the hallway. Sephiroth feels himself smile. Marlene, on the other hand, takes off like a shot to slam into his legs and wrap her arms around his waist.

"Cloud!"

"Hey, kiddo."

"Sephiroth braided my hair."

"I can see that. It looks very nice."

"Well, _yeah,"_ she says, rolling her eyes, "that's because _Sephiroth_ did it."

Sephiroth coughs and busies himself with his pen to hide the burst of warmth in his chest. Cloud shoots him a smile and says to Marlene, "Why don't you go show Tifa? She's probably off the phone and taking out her frustration on dirty glasses."

"What are _you_ two going to do?" she asks, looking between Cloud and Sephiroth.

"Very boring things," Sephiroth tells her solemnly. "I need to tell Cloud how much money we've earned or lost depending on the number of packages that have been delivered and the fluctuating cost of fuel, not to mention weapon upkeep because of the monsters – "

"I'm pretty sure you're lying, but okay."

After Marlene leaves, Cloud comments wryly, "She's too young to be so cynical."

Sephiroth snorts. "I imagine you weren't much different."

"True. Nor you."

As Cloud crosses the room, Sephiroth asks, "How long were you standing there?"

"Long enough to hear Marlene ask the kind of questions that only kids can get away with." Cloud stops behind Sephiroth's chair and nudges Sephiroth to lean forward so he can slide his hands over unexpectedly relaxed shoulders, pushing his thumbs into hard muscle. "I'm surprised you didn't notice me. Are you all right?"

"Yes. Mostly. Just surprised. Please don't stop."

"Yeah, kids do that. How's the name change coming along?"

"Cloud, I don't name things. For the brief period that Hojo allowed me to have a cat, I called it Kitty. More to the right, please – _ah_."

"He let you have a cat?" Cloud asks, surprised.

"I only had it for a month.  I believe it was some kind of study about interspecies socialization, although for all I know he just wanted to know what I'd do with it. The man was good at bullshitting rationalizations."

"Language," Cloud snickers. Sephiroth manages a twisty maneuver that gets Cloud around the chair and sideways into Sephiroth's lap in a single graceful motion, and he lets his head fall forward until his forehead is pressing against Cloud's bicep.

"I'm afraid my hair is too short for you to braid. You're about, what, fifteen years too late, give or take."

"Hmm. Unless we find you another wig," Sephiroth mumbles into Cloud's skin. When Cloud leans away so he can look Sephiroth in the face, Sephiroth makes an unhappy noise that he'll probably be embarrassed about later.

"How do you know about that?"

"Ms. Lockhart felt it was something I should know."

"I can't believe – well, yes, I can believe it, but I can't believe it. How did _that_ come up?"

"About a week ago she asked me about you and Zack, so I told her about the time with the executive showers – "

"Sephiroth!"

" – and so she told me what Ms. Gainsborough did to sneak you all in the Honey Bee." Sephiroth looks up to find Cloud vaguely frowning. "Is that all right?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's fine, I just…try not to think about it, I guess?"

Now it's Sephiroth whose brows are pulling together seriously. "It bothers you."

"Maybe? I'm not sure why. We obviously got through it just fine. I…haven't actually thought about it in a long time." Cloud's gaze has gone distant in a way that Sephiroth hasn't seen in months, not since the last time Cloud woke them both up in the middle of the night from a violent nightmare, but then he visibly pushes the thought away and, just like that, his smile comes back and he nudges Sephiroth. "So tell me what clever names you've come up with for our joint business venture."

Sephiroth files away a mental note to analyze this later, then lets it go.  "I've already warned you that I don't do naming, Strife."

"Pulling out the surnames now, are you. C'mon, spill. You're just building the anticipation at this point, Sephiroth, you may as well surrender now."

"'General Private Delivery'? Technically an accurate description."

"I'll deliver _your_ privates."

Sephiroth narrows his eyes at Cloud. "Zack was a terrible influence on you."

"In more ways than you know. And hey, the only reason I haven't been promoted is because ShinRa and SOLDIER don't exist anymore. Give me another."

It takes a few seconds for Sephiroth to find his words because Cloud's hand, which had been gradually migrating back up and over his shoulder, is tangling itself in Sephiroth's hair, pulling gently and pressing drugging circles against the base of Sephiroth's skull. "'Fenrir Delivery.' 'Forseti Delivery.' 'Inexplicable Nibel Customs Delivery.'"

"Wow, you really are bad at this."

"I don't hear you offering any alternatives."

"Because it's funnier this way. Keep going."

Sephiroth exasperatedly tightens his arms around Cloud's waist until Cloud lets out an awkwardly breathless squawk. "I don't know," Sephiroth says. Cloud's still playing with Sephiroth's hair. Between the feel of it and Cloud's warmth and weight on his lap, Sephiroth can't decide if he wants to try getting his hands under Cloud's clothes or just fall asleep the way they are. "'Survivor Delivery Service.'"

"While I can appreciate the sentiment behind it, 'Survivor Delivery Service' sounds like either a paranoid survivalist's supply or a support group. I can't decide which."

Sephiroth shifts Cloud around a bit so that his forehead can press against Cloud's lean chest instead. "We don't have to figure it out now. We have time."

Sephiroth's starting to doze when Cloud softly says, because apparently this is a day for bizarrely random conversation starters, "I knew some people who used to say that hair holds memories."

Sephiroth makes an inquisitive sound.

"People who haven't cut their hair in a long time – well, there are things happening when their hair's short, and their hair keeps growing while different things are happening, but the hair that was growing during the first things is still there. Like a timeline, I guess." Sensing that Cloud isn't finished, Sephiroth waits silently. It helps that Cloud is still all but petting him. "Sometimes I wonder if that's why Tifa cut hers. It used to be so long."

"If it's true that hair holds memories, then I have another reason not to cut it," Sephiroth points out.

Cloud leans over to prop his chin on top of Sephiroth's head. The softness of his shirt, the darkness created by the curve of his body, feels safe.  "Yeah.  I understand."

...

When Cloud sees the pictures a few days later, he goes into the storeroom to laugh his ass off.

He sleeps on the couch that night.

 


End file.
